8:52 PM,
Jul. 14, 2013

The Hakim family said it will replace The Atrium hotel with a full-service convention hotel on the same site.

Written by

Ouachita Parish's top tourism officer would love to book more conventions for the market. Conventioneers are famously generous with their spending, and they often engage caterers and other local businesses to serve their events.

But Alana Cooper, executive director of the Monroe-West Monroe Convention and Visitors Bureau, said her agency no longer competes for medium-size conventions of 300 to 500 people because the market doesn't have a hotel that can accommodate them.

"We're limited; no question about it," Cooper said. "We can't even host our state travel summit anymore because it ...